1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for distributing information, particularly, but not exclusively a warning of a hazard, such as a flood, to people to whom information is to be provided via a telecommunications system.
2. Description of Related Art
The task of warning people of the imminent or actual danger of a hazard, for example, warning the inhabitants of an area which is likely to suffer from flooding, has traditionally been handled by sounding local alarms such as sirens, and by word of mouth. Additionally, it is one of the duties of the police force to make checks at each property which might be affected in their jurisdiction, to ensure that all at risk are safely evacuated.
Recently in the UK the use of sirens has been stooped altogether. Additionally, where the resources made available to police forces are overstretched, the house-to-house method of checking that everyone at risk is informed of the danger cannot be relied upon as an effective warning system. This is especially true in isolated areas where many local inhabitants are difficult to reach by road or on foot.
Warning systems based on the public telephone system have been disclosed which attempt to increase the speed with which the warnings are issued, whilst reducing the manual effort required.
For example, JP 06-291870 discloses a method of alerting fire brigades and individual fire fighters to the existence of a fire. This is achieved through the implementation of an automatic telephone message delivery system, which delivers predetermined synthesised speech telephone messages to a predetermined list of recipients.
For a different purpose, GB 2227627 discloses a method of dispatching field service engineers to reported faults in industrial plants. This disclosure relies upon synthesised voice messages containing a description of the fault and its location, transmitted via the telephone network. Each fault message is communicated to the engineer who last serviced the equipment which has developed the reported fault. If the engineer is not contactable, or in the event that he fails to confirm that he will attend to the fault, the warning system attempts to contact each engineer from a predetermined list, in turn, until an engineer confirms to undertake the job.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,867 discloses an automated calling system in which messages may be distributed by telephone to predetermined lists of call recipients. Alternatively a rectangular area bounded by specified horizontal and vertical co-ordinates input by the user may be used to determine geographically a list of call recipients which are located in the area.
CA 2,153,096 A1 discloses a similar system to that of U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,867. In this system, the selection of call recipients is achieved by the user selecting one of a number of predetermined sub-regions.
Other warning systems such as these have also been disclosed, however, their common feature, shared by JP 06-291870 and GB 2227627, is that those organisations and/or individuals who are to be informed upon the occurrence of a certain condition are predetermined prior to the condition arising.